Siren Song

Sour lemonade pinches tongue. Beach

towels dot Atlantic coast like watermelon seeds.

My nose fills with ocean, ears savor

quiet humming carried by crust of waves—

Eyes spot a woman

who sings ankle-deep in water, a lighthouse.

Her sheer sundress tightly clings to her damp skin and dips

into turquoise water below, stained by sticky seaweed.

Her fingers, claws of a king crab, coral red.

I failed to notice her at first, like how a breeze

barely brushes skin. Shouts of beachgoers reach

her ears yet never enter, a hermit crab failing

to infiltrate a swirled shell.

I approach the solitary beauty, krill drawn to bioluminescent

lure of deep-sea anglerfish. Her teeth do not appear

as sharp as those of bathypelagic creatures.

Through them she asks, Would you like to go for a swim?

My child beckons I return to our crumbling

sandcastle, yet I succumb to the woman’s current.

She leads me beneath the surface where air

leaves lungs. I reach out—Nothing

in these eerie depths, no sand beneath my feet.

Anchor with no boat, I sink

into the woman’s arms, now pricked

by her scales as I listen

to her song until

I no longer hear

anything.